COVID-19 vaccines and their side effects

Types of COVID-19 vaccine

In January 2020, COVID-19 spread from China to Asia, followed by Europe and the United States. Vaccine research institutes and companies around the world have been struggling to develop vaccines. In the wake of the 2009 swine flu epidemic and the 2014-2015 Ebola epidemic, the researchers decided to focus on developing a vaccine platform technology to prepare for the new infectious disease advocated by Bill Gates and others. In addition, The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) has begun funding researches to developing platform technology to vaccine research institutes and development companies. The term platform corresponds to the framework of vaccine development. This is an attempt to shorten the time until commercialization in the event of a new infectious disease epidemic by making the framework used to develop a vaccine for existing infectious diseases applicable to other viruses. The platforms mainly used for this COVID-19 vaccine included a viral vector vaccine, an mRNA vaccine, and a DNA vaccine as gene recombination technology was highly developed in addition to the classic dead vaccine and protein antigen vaccine.

The specifications of vaccines that have started or are scheduled to be vaccinated worldwide are as follows. The vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and Janssen is a viral vector vaccine, and the vaccine developed by Pfizer and Modena is an mRNA vaccine. In addition, there is a vaccine from NovaVax, a protein antigen vaccine currently in clinical trials.

Side effects of the COVID-19 vaccine

As of January 2021, Pfizer and Modena vaccines are being vaccinated all over the world, and an anaphylactoid reaction has been reported in people with a history of severe allergies, so caution is advised. AstraZeneca has been vaccinated in the UK and is scheduled to be vaccinated in India. No serious side effects have been reported yet other than pain at the inoculation site, mild muscle pain and mild fever. Janssen and NovaVax are currently undergoing phase 3 research and the results will be released within the first quarter. Please see below for the latest news related to the side effects of the COVID-19 vaccine.